Main difference I would say is personnel and alignments. With a true 50 defense you would see our DT occasionally in a 4 technique and the DE lined up with their hands in the dirt. 2 LB's and usually a Rover/Cat/Robber on the 2nd line of defense. In a 3-4 basically 4 stand up LB's and more flexibility in blitz schemes because the 4 are more athletic and quicker than prototypical DE

Chatt has a lot of talent. The key to this game will be the same as others and that’s shut down the run game, make them 1 dimensional and predictable on offense. Make them have to rely on the young QB......and be efficient on offense. Sustain drives, get a lead, drain the clock......secure the win.

my opinion is that, in football, the math part can influence strategy on the coaching side, but that's about it.

College football is a unique sport because of both how structured it is and how little the sample size you get compared to other sports (80-100 total plays). If you make mistakes on 10 plays in football, you could lose in a blowout. In Basketball, you can do that poorly and still win by an average margin. In our case, I think we'd do better as a coaching staff if we monitored our own tendencies and see which ones worked and which ones didn't (for instance, passing on second and long has been sketchy this year and the endzone bombs on fourth down have worked never).

A lot of sports is based on reflex. For instance, you can't coach someone like Tyler Vaughn to not jump on a fumble when his helmet's off because the circumstances under which that happen is so rare you're more likely to coach him to reflexively not jump on fumbles. If you integrate too much complexity on the shoulders of players, when many people including coaches and players don't understand probabilistic reasoning (just because they do this play 80% of the time in this formation doesn't mean it'll happen 100% of the time), you potentially coach them in a way that makes them fundamentally unsound.

This is why I draw the distinction between our coaches being fundamentally good coaches; our players have good technique and fundamental, etc. I just have a problem with how we operate strategically because if you take a step back it just doesn't make sense.

You can apply the same logic to Samford too; they have a great passing game but they try to run the ball ~30 times a gamewhen running's not their forte. The only team in the conference I think is strategically sound is Furman, but when you have Blazejowski and the run game they do, anything works, so it's hard to tell if that's a strategy thing or an execution thing

There is nothing I could begin to add to that post. Interesting how one play stands between us and an undefeated season; and that play was such a fluke that it would be hard to describe without video. Being a golf rules official I would add one thought, since often we consider the hypothetical with the rules. What if a referee had thrown a penalty flag on the Samford player who ripped Tyler's helmet off before he recovered the fumble. Would the play have stood in that case?

boulder3m wrote:There is nothing I could begin to add to that post. Interesting how one play stands between us and an undefeated season; and that play was such a fluke that it would be hard to describe without video. Being a golf rules official I would add one thought, since often we consider the hypothetical with the rules. What if a referee had thrown a penalty flag on the Samford player who ripped Tyler's helmet off before he recovered the fumble. Would the play have stood in that case?

No, you can't play without a helmet period. It would have been offsetting penalties, replay first down.

I think they should tweek the way that teams are penalized with that infraction, given how rare it is. 15 yards is totally acceptable if they player is deliberately putting himself at risk (say, the helmet gets ripped off and the player sprints after the ball carrier and tackles him 3 seconds later) but one where he happens to be in the right place at the wrong time and by reflex makes a play (helmet gets ripped off, falls over and happens to wrap up around a ball carrier or recovers a fumble with no return) seems worthy of less yardage (5-10 yards). It's kind of like what they used to do with facemasks a few years ago; there used to be a 5 yard and a 15 yard facemask, then they just did away with the 5 yard one to deter it stronger. You can't really deter a freak play like Vaughns,

I'd argue that the 15 yard penalty hurt us worse than the change of possession.

I don't want to dwell in the past, but current helmet rules are not rational. I don't think I have ever seen a play where a defensive player has been penalized for ripping off a helmet, and I have seen many plays over the last 8 years where our fullbacks come out of the pile without helmets. Why is grabbing a shirt called as holding, while grabbing the non-facemask portion of a helmet is A-OK.

We came in at #8 last night on the committee ratings. If we can play well the next two weeks, we can get a bye and a second week home game before our chance to get revenge against JMU.

Speaking of the helmet rule, I remember very clearly when EB was playing and defenses would regularly try and rip his helmet off so he would have to sit out a play. Probably seemed like it happened more than it did because he was so hard to tackle but it was very evident in some games. Rarely, if ever, was there a flag thrown.

Chatty concerns me greatly this week. As I stated before the season even began, Chatty and FU, who both seemed on a downhill slide, would probably right the ship pretty quickly. And they have. But for some fortunate bounces of that funny shaped ball, WOF could be a so/so runner right now. Throw out the PC game, and WOF has won 7 games by an average 3.28 pts. per game. Also, but for one of the most bizarre plays ever, WOF could have won another by 3pts. I strongly believe that If WOF is to win against Chatty, they must get out front quickly, play nasty defense and put suffocating pressure on the QB. WOF can be the BIG dog on Saturday......and if you can't run with the big dog......stay on the porch......go Terriers!